


After The Eclipse

by lethifolde



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (like a lot of angst), (sort of but I am notoriously bad at happy endings), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Marauders, Marauders' Era, Pre-Canon, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 15:26:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13344078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lethifolde/pseuds/lethifolde
Summary: "How then does the light return to the world after the eclipse of the sun? Miraculously. Frailly." Virginia Woolf, The WavesSnapshots of Remus and Sirius' life together before, during, and after.





	After The Eclipse

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been a long time coming. I started it a couple of years ago, sitting on a plane, listening to sad love songs on Remus' birthday. I only recently rediscovered it and figured that, you know what? We all need more Remus/Sirius angst in our lives. 
> 
> Precariously unbeta'd, as per my usual routine. All mistakes are my own, etc. Featuring copious abuse of semicolons because English grammar rules are made to be broken.

He dreams: blue water; starlight; a new moon. Silence.

\---

In the morning, Sirius is soft and slow, warm from too may blankets and early September sunshine. Remus counts the pillow creases on his face, runs his fingertips against the skin until Sirius is leaning into his touch, shivering. When they kiss, it is sugar and butter, sweet and slow.  
  
They don't bother with the bedroom, Sirius sliding to his knees before him, eyes hooded and loving, hands soft and exploring and heavenly until Remus sees stars. Sweat stained, he kisses himself from Sirius' lips, joining him on the floor, relishing the cool tile. Reaching, curling, he returns the favour, and they lie on the floor feeling sticky and hot and hopelessly, helplessly in love.  
  
Sirius pulls their forgotten breakfast from the counter, balancing the plate. The flat is too warm and Remus struggles to his feet to open the window wider, fresh air drying the salt to his skin.  
  
"Eat," Sirius says, holding out a piece of toast, strawberry jam smears. "I told James we'd look after Harry this afternoon. We'll need all of the energy we can get to keep up with him."  
  
Remus smiles, takes the toast, frees up Sirius' hands so he can roll a cigarette from the pouch in the kitchen drawer. He watches the nimble fingers work, slides back down to the floor.  
  
"I don't know how you can stand to smoke in this weather," he says as he finishes the toast, but he reaches for Sirius' cigarette nonetheless.  
  
Sirius' hands move on their own volition as Remus takes a drag, reaching over to cup him, languid strokes, gentle fingers on his thigh. Remus starts to fill, miraculous, so soon, maybe not so much of a miracle with Sirius there. His hips shift.  
  
"Who knows," Remus says, exhaling smoke unsteadily. "One day we might actually make it to bed."  
  
Sirius grins, twisting his wrist carefully, presses his thumb just _so_. "Not likely."  
  
Remus groans, head falling back and hitting the cupboard.

\---

Harry is thirteen and a half months, squirmy and lovely, reaching for them when Remus opens the front door. Sirius plucks him from Lily's arms, spins him around, laughing, Harry squealing. Remus leans against the door frame and watches as Harry presses a hand to Sirius' cheek, scrunching tiny fingers into the scruff.  
  
"Pads!" Harry announces and James and Lily beam. For a flash, they look their age.  
  
"It'd be nice if Harry had someone closer to his own age to play with," James says. He and Lily are both looking at Remus and Remus is still looking at Sirius. "We should be back around six to pick him up."  
  
"No hurry," Sirius says, bouncing the toddler perched on his hip. "We have plenty of trouble to get into."  
  
Lily shakes her head, kisses them all on the cheek; he and Sirius watch her and James head back down the stairs of the tenement, holding hands and glancing back over their shoulders. Sunlight bounces off Lily's shock of red, setting her hair alight.  
  
Trouble turns out to be Sirius and Harry turning the living room into a dance floor, Remus picking the music and casting charms to illuminate the room, dazzling colours and shimmers that make Harry laugh and Sirius' eyes light up. When the last notes of Bowie's Kooks float away, Sirius crooning along, gold sparkles falling from the ceiling, Remus decides it is time for a story.  
  
Sirius gathers baby Harry in his arms and Remus makes tea, but by the time he has returned to the living room with biscuits, Sirius is fast asleep on the couch, Harry slumbering against his chest.  
  
Yes, Remus thinks, his heart feeling so full he thinks it might pop. It would be nice.

\---

"Lily thinks we should have a baby," he says, peering at Sirius from the corner of his eye.  
  
They've gone to Brighton for a few days, an attempt to help him recover after the most recent full moon. The night had left him bloody and covered in fresh wounds, bedridden for two days. With the sea air and lazy mornings spent bedridden in a much more pleasant way, the scars are already starting to heal.  
  
Sirius looks at him, grinning. "We could have a whole pack of cubs," he says. "Get a place in the countryside."  
  
"Would you?" Remus asks before he can help himself.  
  
"Why not?"  
  
Remus pushes the hair from his eyes, runs a finger along a fresh wound on his temple. "There's a chance they could...you know..."  
  
"Be wolves?" Sirius finishes. "The more the merrier. The rest could learn to transfigure like I did. It could become a family affair."  
  
That flash of love, blinding; Remus' laugh is high and bright, enough to make Sirius smile.  
  
"If we weren't on a boardwalk surrounded by corruptible young minds then I'd snog you senseless right now," Sirius says, stage whisper. "But I suppose I'll wait until we get back to the hotel to shag you into the mattress."  
  
An elderly lady overheads, scoffs at them. Sirius offers her a lewd wink. Remus blushes to the roots of his hair, the lady scurries off, and Sirius' hand bumps gently against his.  
  
"I love you, you dolt," Sirius says, as though it is the easiest thing in the world to say. And maybe it is, but somehow Remus chokes on the words.  
  
"I know," he says instead, and chances a squeeze of his lover's hand.  
  
"Besides," Sirius says, not letting go, his palm hot and smooth against Remus', "we won't get much of a chance to be alone when the cubs come."

\---

"We'll be fine, Remus," Lily is saying, but her voice is wavering and she is squeezing him a bit too tight as hey hug. "It'll only be for a couple of weeks and we'll write everyday."  
  
"And Peter-?" Sirius goes to ask.  
  
"It's fine," James says, and Remus watches James and Sirius communicate silently in that way he has always envied. Their eyes are shiny and bright. "We'll send you pictures of Harry whenever we can."  
  
Sirius is strong and silent and holding his hand, squeezing so hard he can't feel his fingers, and he is trying to rub circles on the back of Sirius' hand to soothe him. They've all offered their farewells and said they wouldn't cry but still, Remus feels like his throat might close up when Prongs claps him on the shoulder, when Lily kisses him on the cheek, when Harry raises a chubby fist in a final farewell. The urge to gasp for air, to reach for them.  
  
"See you soon, Red," Sirius says as she closes the door, and they hear the footsteps descend, and then Sirius is pulling himself away and into the kitchen. Remus hears a furious curse, something shatter.  
  
Sirius has combusted the occupants of a cupboard full of second-hand crockery, shards piling up behind glass doors. A thin stream of porcelain dust trickles through the cracks. Sirius turns on a cupboard of glasses, brandishing his wand, and Remus stops his wrist just in time.  
  
"Let me go, Moony," Sirius says, almost a growl. "Let me go."  
  
"What's it going to do, Padfoot? How is that going to help?"  
  
"It'll make me feel better," Sirius snaps, wrenching out of Remus' grip. The glasses shatter, exploding behind cupboard doors in an impressive orchestral crash.  
  
"And what about me?" Remus asks. "I'm not allowed to be emotional. I have to be the calm one, the level-headed one."  
  
"Remus--,"  
  
"You think this doesn't hurt?" Remus asks, because now he has started he can't stop. "You think this isn't killing me? Saying goodbye to them? You think this isn't the hardest thing I've ever done?"  
  
Sirius' arms are around him then, crushing him tight to his chest, and sobs are tearing their way out. Both of them are crying, soon, the collar of his shirt is damp with Sirius' tears, his throat feeling raw and aching and his whole body feeling old.  
  
When they kiss, it is wet and unpleasant and entirely necessary, a clashing of teeth and bruising fingertips.  
  
This time, they make it to the bed, instinct and need. Afterwards, Remus holds Sirius tight against him, kisses him slow.

\---

He dreams: green light; an engine growl. Everything all at once.

\---

Remus wakes, cold sweat and abandoned sheets pooling at the foot of his bed. Someone is shouting, loud, voice from the fireplace, and he is on his hands and knees and crawling over to the hearth. Sirius' face is in the flames; through sleep and semi-consciousness, Remus sees tear tracks on his lover's cheeks. He wants to reach, climb through the Floo, but Sirius is saying something.  
  
"You need to come back," Sirius tells him, "I need you. I need you. James and Lily. Remus, please."  
  
"The mission--,"  
  
"They're dead, Moony. They're dead. Ja-James and Lily," Sirius says. His face is wide and pale. "They're dead."  
  
And just like that, everything stops.  
  
"Moony. I need you."

\---

Time passes, as he supposes it always does. He wear black and is silent at the cemetery, returns to pack up the last of the flat when the wake begins. No one speaks to him, no one knows what to say, but he knows they are wondering how he could have missed the signs, why he didn't do anything, how he could even show his face at the funeral.  
  
He wants to burn Sirius' belongings, send them up in smoke, but his smell is on everything and it is so overwhelming he can't even speak to cast. So he packs it all up instead, folding everything carefully, the pictures of the four of them. He resists the urge to cut Sirius' face out of every part of his life, somehow.  
  
Time passes.

_\---_

_Harry is fine.  
_  
Dumbledore sends the note every full moon, no other information enclosed. It is just enough to get him through each month, a light at the end of the nights spent screaming and scratching and tearing himself apart. The evening of every new moon he settles at his desk, quill in hand. His replies go unanswered, pleas for information return unopened.  
  
He hasn't seen Harry since they went into hiding, the last photo sent just before Halloween focused on the child's bright eyes and happy smile, waving a hand at the camera, Lily thin and pale but so happy. Now, though, the photograph is faded, folded, Harry's movements stuttering as the picture ages, the child grows.  
  
_Please, Albus. Let me see him.  
_  
_Harry is fine, Remus. This is for the best._

\---

Eventually, he yearns. He begins to ache.  
  
His skin itches for warmth and the touch of another, and he finds the answer in a Muggle bar on a hot July night. The liquor is cold, condensation on the side of the glass, chilling him from the inside as he catches the eye of a man across the bar, tall and dark and long black hair. In the dim light, Remus' breath catches in his throat, and he thinks it is alright to make believe just for one night.  
  
There are no pleasantries or niceties, just the stranger's hand on his shoulder as he passes to the bathroom. He follows, leaves his pint half-drunk, and wandlessly locks the bathroom door when the man's back is turned. They waste no time, fumble with belt buckles and the man drops to his knees, hands rough and soft in all of the right places.  
  
Remus feels as though he is coming apart at the seams, gripping tight to the stranger's hair, and with his eyes shut tight he can almost believe he is somewhere else, with someone else. When they finish, he leaves all attachment in he lavatory, kisses on stubbled cheeks before stumbling out into the alleyway behind the bar.  
  
The heat is suffocating and he doubles over, retching hard enough that his vomit comes up flecked with red.

\---

He dreams: an almighty bang; the starless night; a taste of autumn on the horizon.

\---

Dumbledore visits when he is laid up in hospital and is almost dead and maybe he wishes he was. It is mid-July again, somehow, and the full moon almost killed him as he tried to rip his own heart out, would have done anything to make it possible. The hospital room is stifling and sticky.  
  
"The position would start in September," Albus says. "Full salary, of course, and room and board will be provided. You'll have all meals in the dining hall or your private quarters, with full access to all facilities and amenities."  
  
He wants to tell Albus to leave, to walk out that door and never look back, but the Healers are surprised his voice box even survived the trauma he put it through this past moon, Silencing Charms to prevent further damage.  
  
"Severus will offer you Wolfsbane Potion every month, too," Dumbledore says, an afterthought. "No more moons like this one."  
  
It takes a great deal of effort for him to look up, one eye swollen shut. Albus' eyes are twinkling down at him, blue and eerie.  
  
"Well?"  
  
He chews on the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood, forces himself to nod, falls back against his pillow. He squeezes his eyes closed as Albus claps his hands together once, then a rustle of parchment. Remus lets out a long, slow breath, steadying, before he opens his eyes.  
  
"Excellent, excellent," Albus says. "I shall leave all of the necessary paperwork here, ensure you get all of the signatures correct. Your contract commences as of September first, I'm sure you are aware, so you best get to planning lessons sometime soon."  
  
The sheets of parchment are stacked on the bedside table, too high for contracts alone.  
  
"I've left a copy of the Prophet for you, by the by," Albus says as he turns to leave. "A touch of light reading before you are discharged. The headline should prove to be of interest to you."

\---

Harry is thirteen and wonderful and Remus writes letters to James and Lily that they will never read, telling them of their son, keeping them in sealed envelopes in the top drawer of his desk. Remus wants to tell Harry everything, all the stories of his youth, has to remind himself again and again that he is not James, that he is a child, that he barely knows Remus no matter how much Remus knows of him.  
  
He sets essay questions, he marks stacks of papers, he teaches his students well, complaints are few and easily brushed off. He tries not to pay too much attention to the newspaper, not when Sirius' name is all over it, not when his whole body aches just to think of him. He drinks his Wolfsbane dutifully each month under Severus' watchful, hateful stare. He does not look up at the moon.  
  
The world, for the first time he can remember, seems at peace.

\---

Of course, Remus knows, peace is made to be broken. Come June, it doesn't just break; the world as Remus has come to understand it cracks, shatters, dissolves quite spectacularly.

\---

Seeing Sirius again is like waking up, realising the last decade has been some strange fever dream, worse than even his most dizzying nightmare. It is the gulp of fresh air when he awakens, remember where he is, safe, safe, heart beating a reassuring tattoo against his ribcage.  
  
It doesn't even occur to him to restrain himself, and he holds Sirius close against him, wanting two to become one. Sirius is no better; he clings to Remus, drowning man and lifeboat lost at sea.  
  
Despite himself and Sirius' frail, desperate hand at his chest, Remus finds it in himself to talk to Harry. After all, there are lies that must be untold and truths to be woven, and Sirius, something wrong with Sirius, seems in no condition to do the talking. His explanation is hasty and rushed and he trips over every word, but there is something in Harry's eyes: recognition, belief, acceptance.  
  
He can hear the blood rushing in his ears. It makes him feel nauseous, seasick, but then Sirius wraps his hand around his wrist and his centre of gravity returns.

\---

It’s another month before he sees Sirius again. He spends it in a tiny, cramped apartment in London where there is mould on the ceiling and the air is always damp and there is no hot water, no matter the time of day. The day of the full moon, an owl arrives for him, vial of Wolfsbane in its talons, and he spends the night curled up in the corner of his flat; by morning, he feels restless and irritable and angry, angry at having to be grateful for just this, when all he has is a sagging roof over his head and unanswered letters, angry at Dumbledore, angry at even James and Lily for dying, of being the one left standing. He wonders, a small part of him, when he became so angry.  
  
There is a knock at the door, a hot Wednesday morning, and Remus is on edge, wand in his hand, no one but Dumbledore supposed to know where he is, the place Charmed into hidden oblivion. He drops the paperback he is reading, dust rising in plumes where it lands on the floor.  
The knock, again, more insistent now.  
  
Sirius is waiting on the other side, and, God, Remus thinks his heart will beat its way right out of his chest.  
  
“Hi,” Sirius says, and he looks so frail; Remus thinks he doesn’t suit the word, but there is nothing else that matches how small he looks in his Muggle clothes, face gaunt and drawn.  
  
“Hello,” Remus says. Maybe his voice cracks. Maybe something is simmering beneath his skin.  
  
“Dumbledore told me,” Sirius says. “Where you were, I mean.”  
  
There is something in Sirius’ eyes, something mad and roving, and of course he’s always been a bit off, a bit mad, it’s in the Black genes, it’s part of what made Remus so impossibly attracted to him, the madness within, within someone else. But now, it seems stuck there, wild. Remus wants to hold him until that bright, shining gleam fades.  
  
“Tea?” Remus offers, and that glint turns to something familiar.  
  
“Whiskey?” Sirius counters, stepping over the threshold and following Remus into his excuse for a kitchen, also his living room, also his bedroom.  
  
“Both,” Remus decides, filling the kettle and tapping it with his wand to get it going, digs in the drawer for teabags.  
  
Sirius moves around him, peers into the only two mugs Remus owns, instinct or maybe muscle memory when he reaches for Remus’ wand on the kitchen counter and cleans them with a muttered charm. Remus freezes where he is, hands in the box of Earl Grey, Sirius still as he’s ever been in the corner of his eye.  
  
The kettle boils, begins a shrill whine, not that either of them move to silence it. Instead, Remus reaches for Sirius, curls his hand around Sirius’, the one that is still holding his wand. Sirius’ hand is bony and cold in his grip.  
  
“Moony,” Sirius says, and his voice is ragged and tired, enough that Remus feels his heart splinter.  
  
“I know,” Remus says, and the wand drops to the floor, their bodies colliding, pieces fitting together, still, after all this time, chest to chest and skin to skin. Close enough Remus can feel Sirius’ heartbeat in his own chest, fast as a hummingbird.

\---

He dreams, or maybe he doesn’t: skin ravaged; scars and tattoos; the secrets their bodies still keep.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave kudos and comment if you liked it!


End file.
